This is an even better article, about AG / Bush Whitehouse pushing for longer data retention.

I think this graph is choice:

Pointing to private meetings last year with ISPs, privacy groups and victims groups, Gonzales said he was aware many ISPs already retain data for business purposes and are “great partners to the law enforcement community”, but he added: “However, for those few cases where we need the information, the question is, how do we maintain that evidence?“

Yes, how do we maintain that evidence?

Morning Christy!

Morning Christy!

Just getting to the Lake.

Morning gang. :)

Oh shoot, thought I was making a new comment but was stuck in edit on the first one.

This question occurred to me last night while reviewing the day’s developments: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

Sid Blumenthal in Salon today on the bifurcated functions of a parallel administration, divided into military and diplomatic on the one hand, and political on the other:

(snip)

While Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld installed neoconservative ideologues throughout the national security apparatus, sidelining the senior military, diplomatic corps and intelligence community, and creating parallel operations to avoid assessment by professionals, Rove was handed the rest of the executive branch to arrogate for political purposes.

(snip)

Jason Sigger (The Armchair Generalist) points to this piece in today’s Boston Globe about the exodus of young West Point graduates from the Army. The rate is higher than it’s been since before 1977.

According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year — 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.

I’ve seen reports on military-related websites that the exodus rates for non-USMA junior officers and senior non-coms with 10-15 years of service are similarly high. When people bail when within sight of the 20 year retirement threshold it’s an ominous sign. These folks would have been the core of the future Army, folks.

Morning, Christy and all. Looks like we should get a disco ball to direct the sunlight into all these nasty, infested little corners.

Also, Pelosi held her own very well this a.m. on “Today” with Mrs. Dan Senor (aka Campbell Brown).

During a town hall meeting last month, I asked my Senator Ron Wyden about when we would see phase 2. He seemed surprised and actually happy that I brought it up. He stated it was a “high priority” of the chairman of the intel. committee (Rockafellar, whoe office also said it was a high priority) but couldn’t tell me when I could expect to see it. After the meeting I approached him to further press my point, and he said, “you keep hammering” for it..or something to that effect, then changed the subject telling me that he expected that the CIA Inspector General’s report on 9-11 was given a 30 day deadline to declassify it’s report. I can’t remember exactly what Wyden said about it, but the words “contitutional crisis” did pass his lips. That deadline is April 16th by the way. Phase 2 has been a pet peeve of mine for almost 4 years now and I still want to know when we can expect to see it.

The slamming of Pelosi is for one big reason:

If Bush/Cheney are impeached, she becomes President. The worse she looks, the more impeachment looks like a bad idea (to people who buy this shit.) So when impeachment comes up, the Repug spin will be, LOUDLY, would you rather have Pelosi as President? And as a bonus, will be, this is what the Democrats want, an appeaser of terrorists to come in, without being elected, and be our President. It sickens me to say it, but this stuff has worked for them before, and I can’t imagine it not working again.

Liz Cheney is absolutely right. It’s time to face facts. All the rest of her Rove-written diatribe is bunk. Smoke and mirrors and unending hallways. BTW, things are getting so much better in Iraq. Insurgent just blew self up in the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in the Green Zone, killing and wounding parliament members. Time for another McCain stroll in Wonderland?

The explosion in the Iraqi Parliament building is an other sign how well the glorious surge is working.

EPU’d comment but, is FDL Cafe Press no more?

Christy:

Ed Djerejian’s son Gregory writes a blog called the Belgravia Dispatch, which is always an interesting read (he calls himself a “former” Republican).

http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/

His third post down (dated April 8) has this snippet which is on point (heck, it’s the theme of all our discussions these days–complete failure of our leadership and the need for people to try to step in, however possible, to staunch the bleeding…)

(snip)
“The real reason that Nancy Pelosi’s visit caused such a stir is that it reminded the world that the White House has no Syria policy. It was another in a long line of the ‘emperor has no clothes’ moments. The hysteria about it was mostly a function of it showcasing how dismally we’ve dropped the ball in the Middle East. If we had a Secretary of State worth her salt on such issues, authorized by the President to speak and deal-make with adversaries, things wouldn’t have gotten to the point where former Republicans like myself would actually be cheerleading one of the more underwhelming foreign policy lights on the Hill for calling the Administration’s bluff and traveling to Syria.”

(snip)

The bathtub is full, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and Karl Rove now have their hands on our collective heads and have been holding us underwater for some time now.

-GSD

TPM has a shocking piece about the whole USA’s voting fraud effort.

It is a world turned upside down. They have stopped all efforts at preventing voter disenfranchisment and have instead turned the mighty powers of the US government to prosecute those most likely to be disenfranchised.

The corruption is so thorough, so complete and so malignantly destructive that the government is in deep peril.

Yet, we still have the corrupt, crony daughters of Dick Cheney shoving their filth down our throats.

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Minnesotachuck @ 18, the future military will be Blackwater mercenaries if the neocons have their way.

Louise Desjardins @ 17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter our to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Simply brilliant analogy. Hear! Hear!

If Al Gore had similarly installed one of his daughters in such a position while being Vice President, the MSM would have beat him over the head relentlessly for it. The shrieks of nepotism and political favoritism (from the MSM) would not have ceased until she was shamed from the position in disgrace.

It would have been a subject of daily discourse on par with Ana Nicole’s babydaddy or the diaper-wearing astronaut.

The MSM is absolutely corrupt and complicit in the dismantlement of American democracy.

Gnome de Plume @ 6

This question occurred to me last night while reviewing the day’s developments: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

Their perfect string of failures.

Were these people born stupid, or did they take lessons? Welcome to the 21st C. You simply cannot “isolate” nations and peoples, regardless of your impressions of legitamacy. The world is much, much larger than the Roman empire you and yours aspire to, Liz, honey.

The only reality Cheney _could_ acknowledge is his own shadow realm (think Frodo when he slips on the ring).

Anyhow it’s all moot. This untouched photo clearly depicts Shooter right before he was carried off by a Steller’s Eagle. Apparently, quails have connections…
He’s off to an undisclosed location, I guess.

GSD:

Didn’t you just love that TPM piece? (cough) Living in Madison (evilliberalhippiebastion), we watched the hullabaloo about the Milwaukee voter fraud panic with interest. Then nothing. Zippo. Nada. Hmmmm.

m.

This war is about one simple thing, which is “hiding in plain sight” – Rabid dogs are trying to keep a theocracy from controlling a goodly share of oil in the Middle East.

The threats from Syria and North Korea are simply red herrings to make sure American plebes keep their eyes off the real ball.

For example; The careful avoidance of discussing Shiite vs Suni – a deeply ingrained cultural divide that knows no “national boundaries.”

National boundaries are a western concept which has no real meaning in a theocratic culture. We keep getting hoodwinked into believing there is an “enemy” but there is not. Not Shiite, nor Sunni, but theocratic control of people and their resources.

Our Naked Emperor and the dark forces that drive him – Cheney and the Oil Patch boys – wants to have a “nation” – read, government – in control of people and resources existing within a boundary drawn by Britain in 1918 dividing Shiite and Shiite.

The oil patch boys can control a “national boundaried” government. They can’t control fundamental religious fervor and the culture it spawns.

They want a perpetual war, which is all they can muster to control the people and resources within this artificial line.

For example; McCain is getting ridiculous in his pro-Iraq stances because he wants to tap the money and power Bush tapped to give him the presidency.

Last thread

mui @ 152

I tend to think the whole thing is bogus. As cbl pointed out, training with the mujahedeen under the Bush I. wasn’t exactly terrorism against the U.S.

I guess I am always going to be skeptical given this administration’s past record. I have to raise an eyebrow when I see “US Attorney says . . .” given the current scandal.

Kathleen..this was in the article

“In April 1998, Paul went hiking with “several co-conspirators” in Burr Oak State Park in Glouster, Ohio, about 78 miles southeast of Columbus. They were training, the indictment states.”

Of course it could be bull. this is bizarre but I spent months knocking on doors encouraging people to vote and get involved in the Glouster, Trimble, Chauncey region. I have begged, the new Democratic Congressman Zack Space ,(took Ney’s spot) our new Senator Sherrod Brown and Governor Strickland (put in hundreds of hours for these good guys) to pay more attention to these very poor areas that have been completely ignored during the Republican hold on Ohio.

This is old coal mining territory. Many people strugging (used to have union paying jobs). Now struggling to stay on family land with low paying jobs.

Louise Desjardins @ 17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Let’s not forget the whole Wilson/Plame affair. The very fact that Joe was married to Valerie was a sign of nepotism and insider corruption that negated everything Joe Wilson had done. According the devious, and power-addled mind of Deadeye Dick Cheney, shotgunner of old men.

I can’t take much more of this madness. It really is madness.

-GSD

wow. Redd, you are on FIRE today.

hope you dont mind a long comment. if you do, please let me know and I wont repeat.

A short history lesson: Invading and Occupying Another Country

The tipping point for most 18th century Americans was April 19th, 1775. Up to that point, most Americans believed that America would continue to be allied with and governed by the British crown. That day changed everything. Americans finally stood up and said: we aren’t going to take it any more. From that point on, the notion of independence was firmly planted in the American psyche. It took several years (with a repeat in 1812-15) to expel the British invading/occupying forces, but we prevailed.

(Source: Harvey J. Kaye; Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.)

Skip ahead to 2007. How do you suppose Iraqis feel now? Think they might be past the tipping point?

While looking for a war czar, Jorge, be on the lookout for a foreign policy czar. And an FBI czar, a Homeland Security czar, an Education czar, and czar on.

OT and EPU’d: WaPo’s columnists — this morning it’s Novak again — are trying to claim that Valerie Plame wasn’t a real spy in the sense of the IIPA:

At the hearing, Waxman menacingly challenged Toensing’s sworn testimony that Mrs. Wilson was not “covert” under the act.

But, per the IIPA:

For the purposes of this subchapter:

(1) The term “classified information” means information or material designated and clearly marked or clearly represented, pursuant to the provisions of a statute or Executive order (or a regulation or order issued pursuant to a statute or Executive order), as requiring a specific degree of protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.

[…]

(4) The term “covert agent” means—

(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or […]

IIRC:
(i) There was testimony at the Libby trial that Plame’s association with the CIA was “classified.”
(ii) Plame herself testified to Congress under oath that she had served outside the United States during the five years prior to Novak’s publication of her affiliation with the CIA.

So, now the time has come for the Washington Post and its stable of columnists and editorialists to put up or shut up. If you have some evidence that contradicts this sworn testimony, in the name of justice bring it forward. If not, forever hold your piece.

Gnome de Plume @ 6

This question occurred to me last night while reviewing the day’s developments: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

that’s a polite way to put it.

Sally @ 29

While looking for a war czar, Jorge, be on the lookout for a foreign policy czar. And an FBI czar, a Homeland Security czar, an Education czar, and czar on.

Why not just declare himself Czar and get it frigging over with?

-GSD

The Don Imus situation illustrates how the media wants to focus on the race issue and avoid the gender slur, of which it is the more egregious, so they can avoid having gender slurs against Pelosi and HRC not be called into account. We must not let them play this little trick.

Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi-born American who lived in the U.S. for 30 years, gave up his business here to go “home” to see how he might help. Heard him speak earlier this week. And his eloquent (and well-supported) plea to the U.S. (his country–he’s a citizen here) is Get. Out. Now. His word pictures of what is happening there in our wake is beyond disturbing. And his most powerful metaphor was this: You cannot leave the rapist to oversee the woman he has raped.

Louise Desjardins @ 17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

hilarious! thanks.

Gnome de Plume @ 6

This question occurred to me last night while reviewing the day’s developments: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

Rumor has it that he’s already started trashing offices in the WH in preparation for the incoming Democratics.

jmba @
10

During a town hall meeting last month, I asked my Senator Ron Wyden about when we would see phase 2. He seemed surprised and actually happy that I brought it up. He stated it was a “high priority” of the chairman of the intel. committee (Rockafellar, whoe office also said it was a high priority) but couldn’t tell me when I could expect to see it. After the meeting I approached him to further press my point, and he said, “you keep hammering” for it..or something to that effect, then changed the subject telling me that he expected that the CIA Inspector General’s report on 9-11 was given a 30 day deadline to declassify it’s report. I can’t remember exactly what Wyden said about it, but the words “contitutional crisis” did pass his lips. That deadline is April 16th by the way. Phase 2 has been a pet peeve of mine for almost 4 years now and I still want to know when we can expect to see it.

He’s been dodging my questions (letters and emails) for more than two years now… I can only believe his “surprise” was insincere. He doesn’t seem to care…

Can we convince him we’re serious and he should get moving on this?

GSD @ 32

Sally @ 29

While looking for a war czar, Jorge, be on the lookout for a foreign policy czar. And an FBI czar, a Homeland Security czar, an Education czar, and czar on.

Why not just declare himself Czar and get it frigging over with?

-GSD

I’m sure he’ll get to it once he brings in this year’s crop of brush at his brush ranch. It’s hard work.

Louise Desjardins @
17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

would be funny, but so sad, This time there is truth to the charge.

Biodun @ 7

Sid Blumenthal in Salon today on the bifurcated functions of a parallel administration, divided into military and diplomatic on the one hand, and political on the other:

(snip)

While Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld installed neoconservative ideologues throughout the national security apparatus, sidelining the senior military, diplomatic corps and intelligence community, and creating parallel operations to avoid assessment by professionals, Rove was handed the rest of the executive branch to arrogate for political purposes.

(snip)

Thanks so much for this link. Blumenthal always nails it IMO. Worth a 2nd snip for his analysis of Monica Goodling alone:

“Within the Bush administration, there are hundreds of Monica Goodlings, and she was their ideal. A zealot for the cause, she apparently divides the world into good and evil, sacred and profane. She interprets criticism and debate as a mortal threat to all that is good and holy. She sees any institution of American life that is not devoted to the flag and cross to which she pledges and worships as twisted, biased and infernal. (To Goodling, CNN is “a force of the left.”) She cannot distinguish between her absolute beliefs and their political instrumentality. She considers objective and professional analysis a ruse, an ideology in itself, a false faith.”

Sally @ 29

While looking for a war czar, Jorge, be on the lookout for a foreign policy czar. And an FBI czar, a Homeland Security czar, an Education czar, and czar on.

Czars ‘r Us

Louise Desjardins @
17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Um, does the word “boondoggle” ring a bell?

the cheney spawn is their best op ed writer now, you have to use what you have. and you know they will use anything.

there is no more room for decorum. decorum is continuing this war. it is continuing the plundering of our country and many others. it is keeping our fearful congress from impeaching them.

I am sorry, after all this, how can any of us treat with republicans that have voted for these people? is it apathy? is it ignorance? I am sorry, they have had enough chances.

but you know it doesn’t change. My state rep emailed proudly yesterday that he had voted against women’s rights, against the environment and against workers rights. he was proud to do so and made up excuses that were so offensive that it is hard for me to imagine any person being able to stomach them. a proud republican tool in a red county in a blue state.

we must eliminate these people from positions of importance for ever. there is no room for the scum that want law and order for everyone except themselves.

GSD @ 32: What shall we call him? Nicholas II Redux?

Alice B @ 33: Good point!

oh and just so ya know . . .

there is a contretemps surrounding Wolfowitz’s girlfriend, her salary (higher than Condi’s), etc.

CREW

well when shipped off to State, guess where she landed ???

Insiders tell me that Riza got a $50,000 raise, to an annual salary of $170,000, before (as I reported earlier) Wolfie arranged to ship her to the State Department to work with Dick Cheney’s daughter Elizabeth Cheney, where the two women are operating what amounts to a slush fund at State’s Middle East bureau.

Village Voice

bg @ 42

Louise Desjardins @
17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Um, does the word “boondoggle” ring a bell?

And/or “junket.”

GSD @ 32

… Why not just declare himself Czar and get it frigging over with? -GSD

Here’s a theory — because he’s so frigging incompetent he wants to delegate the entire set of the responsibilities of POTUS to others, in hopes they (a) can do the job better than he was and (b) can serve as convenient whipping boys (because they WILL be boys, and preferably bald) when they can’t clean up his messes.

Just sayin’. I know these hypotheses aren’t original w/me. :) Some wise wag put it well last nite somewhere: “Required reading for post of War Czar: My Pet Scapegoat.“

TiredFed @ 28

wow. Redd, you are on FIRE today.

hope you dont mind a long comment. if you do, please let me know and I wont repeat.

A short history lesson: Invading and Occupying Another Country

The tipping point for most 18th century Americans was April 19th, 1775. Up to that point, most Americans believed that America would continue to be allied with and governed by the British crown. That day changed everything. Americans finally stood up and said: we aren’t going to take it any more. From that point on, the notion of independence was firmly planted in the American psyche. It took several years (with a repeat in 1812-15) to expel the British invading/occupying forces, but we prevailed.

(Source: Harvey J. Kaye; Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.)

Skip ahead to 2007. How do you suppose Iraqis feel now? Think they might be past the tipping point?

There is no such thing as an Iraqi. The tribes and religious sects have been fed this phrase by power mongers who use “national” as a control tool.

The plebes know what this means on the surface, because it has been pounded into the outer layers of their brain. But, deep down inside, they don’t feel the same feelings as, say, an American does when he sees the flag.

This is a fundamental, and very critical difference in the human psyche of their culture vs. ours. The only time we can become capable of co-existing on this planet with them, is when we understand the differences of the cultural psyche.

We are trying to cram this concept called “national boundaries” into the “patriot level” of their psyche. It will never work. The only thing which can be hoped for is some control, unfortunately, through military control. It is perpetual, and Bush/Cheney want to start a war with Iran so their successors cannot “Put it back in the bottle.”

They want to unleash a perpetual conflict to have effective control of these people who do not think like you and I when it comes to “nationalistic patriotism.”

GSD @ 32, would declaring himself Czar rattle Congress in the least? Acting like one hasn’t done so. Strange that the son of a president (even a mediocre president) could have learned nothing, and cared less, about how a democracy should be governed from the top down.

Badwater @ 38

GSD @ 32

Sally @ 29

While looking for a war czar, Jorge, be on the lookout for a foreign policy czar. And an FBI czar, a Homeland Security czar, an Education czar, and czar on.

Why not just declare himself Czar and get it frigging over with?

-GSD

I’m sure he’ll get to it once he brings in this year’s crop of brush at his brush ranch. It’s hard work.

bean czar’s hard work. what i mean to say is, the work’s hard.
which is why i want summun else tdo it.

Here’s a Presidential candiate whom should get much more attention then he does. Article over at rawstory:

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, has sent a letter to the CEOs of seven major oil companies demanding to know why gas prices could soon climb to $4 a gallon.

First I heard of this. Does it mean we get more gas if we buy it on a cold day, in the morn or evening & less gas when we buy on a hot day or in the middle of the day?

you are aware, gasoline expands as it warms, and the amount of energy in a gallon falls, thus providing less value per gallon.

Sally @ 49

GSD @ 32, would declaring himself Czar rattle Congress in the least? Acting like one hasn’t done so. Strange that the son of a president (even a mediocre president) could have learned nothing, and cared less, about how a democracy should be governed from the top down.

He had “other priorities.”

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed?

bg,

not her first time -

January 2007 she wrote a sharply worded op-ed in the Washington Post titled “Retreat Isn’t an Option.

implicitly attacked the U.S. public for weakness in winning the war on terror. “American troops will win if we show even one-tenth the courage here at home that they show every day on the battlefield,” wrote Cheney. “And by the way, you cannot wish failure on our soldiers’ mission and claim, at the same time, to be supporting the troops. It just doesn’t compute” (Washington Post, January 23, 2007).

Cheney reserved much of her invective for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who she argued was proving as weak-willed on Iraq as her male counterparts in Congress: “In 2007, a woman can run for president and show the same level of courage and conviction about this war many of her male colleagues have. Steel in the spine? Not so much.”

WaPo

Sally @ 49

GSD @ 32, would declaring himself Czar rattle Congress in the least? Acting like one hasn’t done so. Strange that the son of a president (even a mediocre president) could have learned nothing, and cared less, about how a democracy should be governed from the top down.

IMHO, GWB should be known as “Bush the Lesser,” just to distinguish him from and rank him relative to his not-so-great father. Perhaps we could call him “Less” for short.

As we mourn Kurt Vonnegut today, I’m reminded that he was the master of the illusory, that everything is not always as it seems. His collection of short stories “Welcome to the Monkey House,”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…..nkey_House

illustrates brilliantly the absurdity to which humans will go to justify their own existence. Every time I hear a new explanation for why a Bushie broke the law, I ask myself, “am I living in a Kurt Vonnegut novel?”

A modern day Jonathan Swift, Vonnegut’s voice will be sorely missed.

bg @ 42

Louise Desjardins @ 17

Have we done this sort of thing before? Send a daughter out to write an op ed? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did her father send her on assignment?

Um, does the word “boondoggle” ring a bell?

“Hey, kiddo, come sit on Daddy’s lap (HehHeh). Y’know how my ratings are in the toilet? And America kinda loves you more because you’re preggers and going to give me a grandchild (no matter if you’re a godless lesbo who used a turkeybaster instead of some real MAN’s Little Soldier as God intended)? Well I think they’d pay attention to this important message if you’d carry my water for me on this one. Come on, help me pass this water…”

Yek.

Some people say that a power lesbian having a baby with her partner emboldens other lesbians.

JF @ 52

Sally @ 49

GSD @ 32, would declaring himself Czar rattle Congress in the least? Acting like one hasn’t done so. Strange that the son of a president (even a mediocre president) could have learned nothing, and cared less, about how a democracy should be governed from the top down.

He had “other priorities.”

Little George’s dad found ways to get him though the schools he attended. Learning was never part of the process.

This criticism might have a shred of credibility if it was in the service of a foreign policy that actually accomplished something.

ANY Cheney calling forthe time to face facts can’t be serious. Thge fact sare, we can’t even keep the green zone safe. Facts are, our ability to create anything that resembles a working democracy in the Middle East through the use of our military is practically nil. Facts are, everything we’ve veen told did happen, is happening or will happen in the Middle East by anyone named Cheney has been wrong. Hell, Dick can’t even predict the past with any accuracy. I’m just waiting to see when the skanky Lynne will pop up to sreech about Nancy. At least Mary had the good sense to get pregnant and shut up.

Note to Cheney’s daughter: Stop trying to micromanage Congress.

So, remember one of the main reasons for the US putting our strong footprint in the Middle east was to bring order to the region. You know, how all that instability helped to promote and create terrorism.

Well, 5 years after Afghanistan and 4 years after Iraq, how is the region looking?

Let’s go to the top headlines for the day on Yahoo:

As of 10:59 a.m. EDT

• Bombing at Iraqi parliament kills 2
• Turkey launches offensives on rebels
• Syria, Israel rebuff unofficial envoy
• At least 35 Afghan militants killed
• Death toll in Algeria bombings hits 33
• India test-fires nuclear-capable missile
• Musharraf: 300 foreign militants killed

Looks like we can say ‘mission abolished’.

-GSD

Um, not sure if a trip to the WaPoo could be called a “junket.”

Even if the Poo is junk.

As a former intern at the Dept of State, it was easy to spot the political appointees roaming the halls, as opposed to the career foreign service officers. The political appointees were in it for the power and the money that would come afterwards, and that was oh-so-easy to see.

You can call it “pay-dar.”

As a matter of survival (being on the lowest rung of the hierarchy), interns develop pay-dar on their very first day, if they didn’t have it when they arrived.

(Of course, there were also the “politically-connected” interns, who were even easier to spot . . . but that’s another story.)

Sorta OT, but I just put this on HuffPo in response to their great headline article with the helicopter above (what might be) Baghdad, trumpeting the terrible bombing in the heart of the Green Zone:

Where’s Edgar Allen Poe when we need him? This is “The Fall of the House of (B)ush(er)” redux.

oldtree @ 43

the cheney spawn is their best op ed writer now, you have to use what you have. and you know they will use anything.

there is no more room for decorum. decorum is continuing this war. it is continuing the plundering of our country and many others. it is keeping our fearful congress from impeaching them.

I am sorry, after all this, how can any of us treat with republicans that have voted for these people? is it apathy? is it ignorance? I am sorry, they have had enough chances.

but you know it doesn’t change. My state rep emailed proudly yesterday that he had voted against women’s rights, against the environment and against workers rights. he was proud to do so and made up excuses that were so offensive that it is hard for me to imagine any person being able to stomach them. a proud republican tool in a red county in a blue state.

we must eliminate these people from positions of importance for ever. there is no room for the scum that want law and order for everyone except themselves.

I think we should tell them to go back where they came from – 18th Century England!

SOS at 56 — Liz is the heterosexual married with children daughter (whose husband is, incidentally, on the WH dole working for Homeland Security). Mary is the currently pregnant one with a long-term lesbian partner who works as her father’s personal assistant, press liaison. And, for the record, I hope her pregnancy is uneventful and the baby is healthy, and the child ought to be left out of this.

OnTheCusp @ 57:

IIRC, Liz C. is the straight, married daughter. Mary C. is the lesbian.

Minnesotachuck @
8

Jason Sigger (The Armchair Generalist) points to this piece in today’s Boston Globe about the exodus of young West Point graduates from the Army. The rate is higher than it’s been since before 1977.

According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year — 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.

I’ve seen reports on military-related websites that the exodus rates for non-USMA junior officers and senior non-coms with 10-15 years of service are similarly high. When people bail when within sight of the 20 year retirement threshold it’s an ominous sign. These folks would have been the core of the future Army, folks.

That’s no lie.

54%? :::Gulp:::

Used to, the retention rates for the Academy grads, all branches, was way up there. You didn’t fight for admittance and endure four years of West Point (or USAFA or Annapolis) to bail the first chance available. The people who wanted to be there wanted to be there more than anything. They could have gone to their pick of the best universities–they chose the Academy.

I never thought I’d see the day when the retention rate for West Pointers dropped so low. Of course, this could be an Army problem. Anyone know the stats for USAFA or Annapolis? If it’s showing up for them, too, then the military is in serious trouble, especially 10 years from now, when these people would be moving into much bigger positions. I’m not saying that only Academy grads can fill those positions…but I’m worried that most of what remains of the top officer corps after this will be the wingnuttiest Bush cultists.

Not good. Not good, at all.

Saw the movie Shooter yesterday it is about a corrupt Gov including a corrupt Senator, General & Atny. General, among others.

mc @ 55

As we mourn Kurt Vonnegut today, I’m reminded that he was the master of the illusory, that everything is not always as it seems. His collection of short stories “Welcome to the Monkey House,”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…..nkey_House

illustrates brilliantly the absurdity to which humans will go to justify their own existence. Every time I hear a new explanation for why a Bushie broke the law, I ask myself, “am I living in a Kurt Vonnegut novel?”

A modern day Jonathan Swift, Vonnegut’s voice will be sorely missed.

Swift definitely comparable. I’m sad that Vonnegut never made it to the L.A. 2007 Music Center Speaker Series for which he was scheduled…

07/17/03
InfoClearingHouse by way of the Washington Times, re. US deep raid into Syria.

Setup

But one administration official described the intelligence as “totally false,” and a former CIA official labeled it “flimsy” and another former U.S. intelligence official called it “almost non-existent.”

One former senior CIA official with access to current intelligence information said he believed the source of the intelligence was Israel, which for months has said either Saddam or weapons of mass destruction were being smuggled into Syria.

“The Izzies (Israelis) have been pitching this to anyone who would listen,” the former CIA official said.

[snip]

Serving and former U.S. intelligence officials attributed a political motive to the attacks, alleging they were designed to disrupt cooperation between the CIA and Syrian intelligence.

“Syria has given us invaluable help on hunting down members of al-Qaida, and they were instrumental in ex-filtrating some major Iraqi fugitives back to Baghdad,” one former senior CIA official said. “That is not to everyone’s liking.”

In early May, two top Iraqi biological scientists who had been hiding in safe havens in Syria were ex-filtrated back to Iraq where they were captured by U.S. military forces, former CIA officials said.

[snip]

“The Syrians have been an incredible help in sharing intelligence,” one serving U.S. intelligence officer said.

Senior Pentagon leaders, who administration officials describe as being very close to Israel, have been unhappy with the increasingly close CIA-Syria ties and used the June 18 attack to disrupt the CIA-Syrian intelligence relationship.

“I think that certain Pentagon officials want to see (Syrian president) Bashar Assad deposed and Syria sign a peace treaty with Israel,” said former senior DIA official Pat Lang.

Interesting that Liz keeps her father’s name. I’m sure it is because the roots of her feminism go deep.

Bush is praying the whole wall of secrecy holds up for another 18 months.

With breeches coming to light like -

- the back-channel e-mail/text systems
- Gonzo lying to Congress, and
- the ‘managed’ news on Iraq falling apart

Any one of which could topple BushCo – Why wouldn’t they conclude that their best strategy for avoiding being held to account for destroying the Country is to:

Attack Iran, and

Invoke the Unitary Executive, tying-up the next 18 months in a Constitutional Crises?

oldtree @ 43 – I’m sure the Bush twins are working on their own op-ed’s. They have to write between parties so it takes a long time. It’s hard work.

This nugget (or gem) is buried (somewhat) in Sid’s piece in Salon, but is quite apt and cogent–and succinct:

Rove’s strategy has depended on subjecting the federal government to political objectives. He is not trying to achieve any abstract goal, such as reaching the conservative nirvana of limited government. The endless scandals revealed are not a random compendium of corruption and incompetence, though they are that, too. They are evidence of Rove’s — and Bush’s — larger strategy of hollowing out the federal government in the interest of building a political state.

Fred Thompson. Our next prez?

Puesto @ 48

TiredFed @ 28

wow. Redd, you are on FIRE today.

hope you dont mind a long comment. if you do, please let me know and I wont repeat.

A short history lesson: Invading and Occupying Another Country

The tipping point for most 18th century Americans was April 19th, 1775. Up to that point, most Americans believed that America would continue to be allied with and governed by the British crown. That day changed everything. Americans finally stood up and said: we aren’t going to take it any more. From that point on, the notion of independence was firmly planted in the American psyche. It took several years (with a repeat in 1812-15) to expel the British invading/occupying forces, but we prevailed.

(Source: Harvey J. Kaye; Thomas Paine and the Promise of America.)

Skip ahead to 2007. How do you suppose Iraqis feel now? Think they might be past the tipping point?

There is no such thing as an Iraqi. The tribes and religious sects have been fed this phrase by power mongers who use “national” as a control tool.

The plebes know what this means on the surface, because it has been pounded into the outer layers of their brain. But, deep down inside, they don’t feel the same feelings as, say, an American does when he sees the flag.

This is a fundamental, and very critical difference in the human psyche of their culture vs. ours. The only time we can become capable of co-existing on this planet with them, is when we understand the differences of the cultural psyche.

We are trying to cram this concept called “national boundaries” into the “patriot level” of their psyche. It will never work. The only thing which can be hoped for is some control, unfortunately, through military control. It is perpetual, and Bush/Cheney want to start a war with Iran so their successors cannot “Put it back in the bottle.”

They want to unleash a perpetual conflict to have effective control of these people who do not think like you and I when it comes to “nationalistic patriotism.”

I agree. just use “Iraqis” as shorthand for those poor souls who live in the vicinity of hell on earth. we were Americans before we ever had a flag; we just didn’t fully realize it. folks know where “home” is, even if there is no national boundary to claim. and we are occupying their “home.”

(Most of the posters here this morning seem to be punch-drunk, including me. Small wonder with what is going on in the name of democracy.)

The Cheney offspring have to protect their inheritance in the rich oil regions Daddy has opened up for them. Speaker Pelosi might be their spoiler in so many ways.

jmba @ 10

During a town hall meeting last month, I asked my Senator Ron Wyden about when we would see phase 2. He seemed surprised and actually happy that I brought it up. He stated it was a “high priority” of the chairman of the intel. committee (Rockafellar, whoe office also said it was a high priority) but couldn’t tell me when I could expect to see it. After the meeting I approached him to further press my point, and he said, “you keep hammering” for it..or something to that effect, then changed the subject telling me that he expected that the CIA Inspector General’s report on 9-11 was given a 30 day deadline to declassify it’s report. I can’t remember exactly what Wyden said about it, but the words “contitutional crisis” did pass his lips. That deadline is April 16th by the way. Phase 2 has been a pet peeve of mine for almost 4 years now and I still want to know when we can expect to see it.

Thanks for bringing up Phase II of the SSCI
Phase II has also been one of my obsessions for the last three years. I have obsessively called into radio shows and asked host to do a show on Phase II and all of the delays.

Senator Pat Roberts did everything they he could to delay and divert that investigation. Let’s hope that Rockerfeller does the public ,especially the people who have lost their lives or family members justice by
holding those responsible (Feith and the Office of Special Plans, the White House Iraq Group, and the Office of Net Assessments) for the false pre war intelligence. This seems the very least that our Reps can do for those who have lost their lives in this war of choice.

It seemed rather odd that the words that the Pentagons Inspector General used to describe the manipulation of pre-war intelligence as “inappropriate”. That would describe lies under oath about a B/J. Not the mis-use of intelligence that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries. I would define that as “criminal”, but I am just a peasant

Let’s keep pushing.

Here are a few articles about Phase II. Can not find the timeline that I thought Think Progress posted a year ago. Will keep looking.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/…..y-roberts/

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/…..se-claims/

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/…..stonewall/

EPU’d from earlier thread:

Gunga Djinn @ 69

ThinkProgress had the disappeared e-mail story (from LA Times) posted late last night. Is someone sleeping on the night shift? ;)

Meanwhile, I’m loving the irony here:

Hatch Act, born of Nixon/Watergate, in effect created the separated political/offical document streams, which may in the end expose a Nixon/Watergate redux.

footnote: Karl Rove is reported to have conducted as much as 95% of his work on the RNC system. That’s a ton of communications, and all it really takes is one letter.

The Hatch Act was passed in 1939. It’s been around MUCH longer than GWB. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if some modifications have been made to the Act since it was passed, but it was around LONG before Watergate!

Marie Roget @ 71

mc @ 55

As we mourn Kurt Vonnegut today, I’m reminded that he was the master of the illusory, that everything is not always as it seems. His collection of short stories “Welcome to the Monkey House,”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W…..nkey_House

illustrates brilliantly the absurdity to which humans will go to justify their own existence. Every time I hear a new explanation for why a Bushie broke the law, I ask myself, “am I living in a Kurt Vonnegut novel?”

A modern day Jonathan Swift, Vonnegut’s voice will be sorely missed.

Swift definitely comparable. I’m sad that Vonnegut never made it to the L.A. 2007 Music Center Speaker Series for which he was scheduled…

he was as good as we had. no one had a better nose for bullshit, or a pen for calling it out.

as much a beacon in his way as orwell was, and if you know me, you know that’s the highest praise i can offer.

a sad sad day.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 67

SOS at 56 — Liz is the heterosexual married with children daughter (whose husband is, incidentally, on the WH dole working for Homeland Security). Mary is the currently pregnant one with a long-term lesbian partner who works as her father’s personal assistant, press liaison. And, for the record, I hope her pregnancy is uneventful and the baby is healthy, and the child ought to be left out of this.

Info gratefully accepted (I didn’t have the time to refresh my memory) and your point about leaving the child out of it is VERY true. Mea culpa on both counts. /blush thanks. I have very close lesbian relatives and I would hate it if their kids were tarred as “collateral damage” which we all deplore. I join w/you in your best wishes for the health of mother and daughter.

GSD @ 62

So, remember one of the main reasons for the US putting our strong footprint in the Middle east was to bring order to the region.

[snip]

-GSD

But . . . but . . .

Bush has brought orders to the middle east. He’s ordered the Iraqis to do things. He’s ordered the Iranians to stop doing things. He’s ordered the Saudis and the Syrians and the Lebanese and the Israelis and the Egyptians and . . . gosh, I can’t think of anyone in the region he hasn’t ordered around.

Bush’s problem is that he can’t find someone who can take orders.

Seymour Hersh on the Syria raid topic.

http://tinyurl.com/2fo362

American intelligence and State Department officials have told me that by early 2002 Syria had emerged as one of the C.I.A.’s most effective intelligence allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, providing an outpouring of information that came to an end only with the invasion of Iraq.

[snip]

Nevertheless, after September 11th the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, initiated the delivery of Syrian intelligence to the United States. The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, including dossiers on the men who participated—and others who wanted to participate—in the September 11th attacks. Syria also penetrated Al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Arab exile communities throughout Europe. That data began flowing to C.I.A. and F.B.I. operatives.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 77

Fred Thompson. Our next prez?

no.

Ugh. Dick Cheney. He moves in a cloud of dry ice smelling like sulfur, in order to hide the cloven feet and forked tail.

The policy aspects of Pelosi’s trip are well commented on. Here’s another angle.

Given the personal relationships between Barbara Bush, her husband and George the Lesser, it absolutely has to drive Junior insane to be schooled by a woman!

I think the smartest tactic Democrats could employ (after nominating Edwards to be our standard-bearer: does anyone else’s policies even come close?)would be for the Speaker to be in the President’s face regularly.

I’m sure she’s aware her Syrian trip had a “who’s your daddy?” aspect that fried circuit boards in our Dear Leader.

Bless her heart!

dmg @ 86

Oklahoma kiddo @ 77

Fred Thompson. Our next prez?

no.

We said that about Reagan. And we said that about Arnie. But…

Badwater @ 75

oldtree @ 43 – I’m sure the Bush twins are working on their own op-ed’s. They have to write between parties so it takes a long time. It’s hard work.

Gosh golly, I doubt it. Jenna’s got that book thingy she’s working on. And the other twin probably hates homework, even if it’s to help out daddy.

Anybody know why Ted Stevens is stuttering self-promoting garbage on the senate floor right now?

spinoza @ 91

Anybody know why Ted Stevens is stuttering self-promoting garbage on the senate floor right now?

Tomorrow, he becomes the longest serving gooper senator.

Bush’s problem is that he can’t find someone who can take orders.

That’s why he’s having trouble finding a war czar. All offers so far have been rejected, mistakes having been made. (Hint: I’m trying hard to be passive here.)

My thinking is that Fred Thompson would be quite viable and a good choice for the Republicans. Especially against Hillary. Against Gore? Now that would be another matter all together perhaps.

“The U.N. Security Council should adopt a Chapter VII resolution mandating the establishment of an international tribunal for the Hariri murder.”

and while they’re at it Liz, they could take up the matter of torture survivor Maher Arar, sent under Extraordinary Rendition to Syria by orders of the US Govt.:)

Kos has a piece up about how the Republican establishment, mainly the leading GOP’ers for President were either supportive of Imus or were stone silent..Flip/Flop Yosemite Mitt, I’m looking at you.

Anyhow, I thought, in light of the GOP outrage about the trials and tribulations of poor Mrs. Alito….the “hell” and the outrage that she suffered…and the attendant GOP breast beating.

How interesting that Imus would launch a vitriolic ad-hominem attack on a group of young, educated and hard working women and that wouldn’t cause all of the GOP’s knights in shining armour to spring to their defense.

Must be because they aren’t part of the club.

-GSD

To CHS — on third thought, it might be well to simply delete my #56. I wouldn’t have any objection if you/other FDL staff wanted to…

Folks, it’s over.

Thankfully, it’s finally over.

Sure there are i’s to be dotted, t’s to be crossed, subpoenas to be issued, televised congressional hearings to be had… but they are done.

We will look back on the “troop surge” & “recess appointments” and see them as the last gasp of a desperate administration similar to how the villain raises up one last time before finally being done away with at the end of the movie.

The e-mail scandal (no, it’s not too early to call it that after yesterday’s developments) will prove to be their undoing.

Think about it; essentially they are saying the content of the e-mails was so damaging that shred, delete & take our chances was the best option.

Never mind that Waxman, Conyers etc. are already on their behinds like a poor boy on a pork chop.

No, this is the end game. Congratulate yourselves on a job well done!

OT: Novak’s column today. I have to read him twice just to get through all of the parsing, but skip down to paragraphs 7 and 8, which say that a CIA lawyer personally wrote that Valerie Plame “was a covert employee of the CIA”. General Hayden, the director of the CIA, told Novak, “I am completely comfortable with that.” Now read the Headline: “‘Covert’ Confusion at the CIA”. Um, where’s the confusion here? It all looks pretty clear-cut to me.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 89

dmg @ 86

Oklahoma kiddo @ 77

Fred Thompson. Our next prez?

no.

We said that about Reagan. And we said that about Arnie. But…

if you could identify the constituency that would propel him to the forefront, i’d be obliged.

OK kiddo,

I think you are on to something. At McCain’s self-immolation rate, he may burn out before the first primary.

Fred is the Republican ideal. An actor that can deliver bullshit tree-top tall, convincingly.

Fox just had an ad on condeming Pelosi & quoting the Wash Post.

The volume of tears which will be shed at Fat Corporate Daddy’s wake will be blottable with a single Q Tip.

Fred Thompson indeed – doncha know – Dobson and the other Mandarins have already made their selection – Gingrich

OntheCusp @
57

Some people say that a power lesbian having a baby with her partner emboldens other lesbians.

Bless them all.

Frank at 99 — There’s no confusion. Welcome to Bob Novak Reputation Rehab attempt #327. Facts be damned, he’s got a personal reputation to salvage. *g*

We can always go from “George the Lesser” to “George the Leastest.”

So many Czars, so little time. When does the chimp appoint a DOSE OF FUCKING REALITY CZAR?

The Liz Cheneys will continue to point distracting fingers until Congress has them trying to keep so many scandals submerged they have every fucking finger busy plugging the holes in the dike.

diogenes @ 88

The policy aspects of Pelosi’s trip are well commented on. Here’s another angle.

Given the personal relationships between Barbara Bush, her husband and George the Lesser, it absolutely has to drive Junior insane to be schooled by a woman!

I think the smartest tactic Democrats could employ (after nominating Edwards to be our standard-bearer: does anyone else’s policies even come close?)would be for the Speaker to be in the President’s face regularly.

I’m sure she’s aware her Syrian trip had a “who’s your daddy?” aspect that fried circuit boards in our Dear Leader.

Bless her heart!

pelosi knows just how to press bush’s buttons. that’s why every time he steps out of line, she comes back with an exquisitely feminine response. my favorite is her “calm down” moment.
she’s easily my favorite politico.

GSD @ 96

… Yosemite Mitt …

What a great moniker. In fact, a Moniker Goodling … help me out here Punaise… :)

Oklahoma kiddo @ 77
Fred Thompson. Our next prez?
————
dmg @ 86
no.
————
Oklahoma kiddo @ 89
We said that about Reagan. And we said that about Arnie. But…
————
dmg @ 100
if you could identify the constituency that would propel him to the forefront, i’d be obliged.

This dark horse could probably pull all the Republicans in from center right to right-right.

[Mod Note; Please only nest 2 or 3 quotes at a maximum. Any more may break the margins. Thank You.]

Oklahoma kiddo @ 77

Fred Thompson. Our next prez?

Hope not, but I went waaaaay out on a limb at the lake a few days ago and called Gore/Thompson as the 2008 race.

Imagine a male politician telling the Leastest to “calm down.” Delicious.

Liz Cheney demonstrates an uncanny grasp of all things that make Syria evil.

You might even say a strategic grasp.

If I were a Republican, I’d be salivating at a Fred Thompson run.

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush’s aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

”They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

My bold. I like that one. Too many bandwidths.

Sally @ 113

Imagine a male politician telling the Leastest to “calm down.” Delicious.

FWIW I think it was better for the Boy King to be admonished by a woman. Only way it coulda been better would be if Speaker Pelosi was a tad more wizened and was wearing a choker necklace of HUGE fake pearls… :)

Gunga Djinn @ 114

Liz Cheney demonstrates an uncanny grasp of all things that make Syria evil.

You might even say a strategic grasp.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the Cheney kids had rebelled just like those Reagan kids?

Dan Froomkin of the WaPo tackles the white house email and RNC server issue. Would that I could link. Techno-challenged am I.

Gnome de Plume @ 6: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

Not only have they broken everything, they have set up timed release systems that will continue breaking everything for years to come.

Minnesotachuck @ 68

OnTheCusp @ 57:

IIRC, Liz C. is the straight, married daughter. Mary C. is the lesbian.

Ach! Thanks Minnesotachuck. I really need to have more coffee before I attempt the Cheney snark.

Biodun @ 116

… ”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

They’re in the toobz somewhere. Send out the search parties! Man the Subpoenas! Avast, ye lubbers! Arrrr…

Oklahoma kiddo @ 115

If I were a Republican, I’d be salivating at a Fred Thompson run.

it may prove out as you say — his strengths are his visibility courtesy of his television/film roles, and his reputation from his washington days.
but i think you’re seriously overestimating his attraction to the far right, which is all the g.o.p. has right now, let’s face it.
a more endangered political species than the republican center i’m not aware of. and of course there’s the money thing.
his fame offsets that partially, but it’s not like he’s hugely known or hugely popular,like reagan or ahnold — and let’s not forget, ahnold’s was a perfect storm of circumstances, along with the fact that it’s just one state.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 115

If I were a Republican, I’d be salivating at a Fred Thompson run.

What is it about actors and the GOP? Pavlov’s theories are reconfirmed every time an actor hints he’ll run for office.

Biodun @
116

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush’s aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

”They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

My bold. I like that one. Too many bandwidths.

Wow, Biodun, until I followed your link I thought this was a spoof you had written…lying? Leahy yelling? Oh. my.

OntheCusp @ 121

… Ach! Thanks Minnesotachuck. I really need to have more coffee before I attempt the Cheney snark.

You-’n’-me bofe. OK, I gonna do the caffeine thing STAT.

I’m not so sure.

Thompson always looks like he’s about to belch.

Biodun @ 116

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush’s aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, a powerful Senate chairman said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up.

”They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that!” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy shouted from the Senate floor.

”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

My bold. I like that one. Too many bandwidths.

See! I told ya! (@98)

From AP:

(snip)

McCain, who met with Rice, said the bombing could not take away from the initial, small successes from the surge. McCain, a presidential candidate, has been a vocal supporter of the war effort.

”It makes all of us sad for these public servants who have been injured or killed but I don’t think you can change the larger picture (that) we are achieving some small successes,” he said.

Small successes, like strolling through the Shorta Market on a Sunday.

It should be quite obvious by now, to all in America, that the Bush surge in Iraq is having an effect.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 67

SOS at 56 — Liz is the heterosexual married with children daughter (whose husband is, incidentally, on the WH dole working for Homeland Security). Mary is the currently pregnant one with a long-term lesbian partner who works as her father’s personal assistant, press liaison. And, for the record, I hope her pregnancy is uneventful and the baby is healthy, and the child ought to be left out of this.

My beef with Mary is not that she’s having a child but rather that she is a gay woman who belongs to a party that is militantly anti-gay, AND she has chosen to profit from this fact ($1million book deal). That makes her a fairly public figure in my book. She lives in a state (Virginia) that just passed a Constitutional amendment that will bring enormous harm to gay families. (My parents live there, and I find that amendment to be so repellent that I don’t even want to visit them on the holidays. I’d rather have them fly out to see me than go back to my childhood home. It’s THAT bad.) Her child is due next month (May). The Virginia vote was in November. Do the math. She was pregnant when the Virginia amendment was being debated by the public. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that this was a fairly well-planned pregnancy, which means she KNEW she was pregnant at the time. And even though she’d just walked away with a seven-figure payoff for telling her story of what it was like to be the Veep’s lesbian daughter, she didn’t say a damn thing. Her voice could have turned the tide there. Instead, she sat back and watched her own family be written out of Virginia’s constitution. This isn’t about Mary’s baby. It’s about Mary herself. And she deserves all the scorn that can be heaped on her.

/rant

S.O.S. from MA @ 122

Biodun @ 116

… ”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

They’re in the toobz somewhere. Send out the search parties! Man the Subpoenas! Avast, ye lubbers! Arrrr…

Oooh, I didn’t realize it was “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

Matey!

Oklahoma kiddo @ 115

If I were a Republican, I’d be salivating at a Fred Thompson run.

Thompson reminds me of Foghorn Leghorn – You know the big cartoon rooster. The poor old boy’s got lymphoma. It may or may not carry electability issues.

I think Gingrich may be their dark horse. Many rethugs consider him to be a brilliant individual. By their standards I suppose he is.

Peterr @ 84

GSD @ 62

So, remember one of the main reasons for the US putting our strong footprint in the Middle east was to bring order to the region.

[snip]

-GSD

But . . . but . . .

Bush has brought orders to the middle east. He’s ordered the Iraqis to do things. He’s ordered the Iranians to stop doing things. He’s ordered the Saudis and the Syrians and the Lebanese and the Israelis and the Egyptians and . . . gosh, I can’t think of anyone in the region he hasn’t ordered around.

Bush’s problem is that he can’t find someone who can take orders.

Ohhh Peterr that was soo good.

Pat_AlexVA @ 105

OntheCusp @
57

Some people say that a power lesbian having a baby with her partner emboldens other lesbians.

Bless them all.

Indeed. My partner and I talk about adopting.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 106

Frank at 99 — There’s no confusion. Welcome to Bob Novak Reputation Rehab attempt #327. Facts be damned, he’s got a personal reputation to salvage. *g*

I know. I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I feel compelled to point out the obvious. ;)

I just heard that John McCain has a bad case of shopper’s envy against Lindsay Graham, his companion in that stroll thru the Baghdad market. John’s declared a War On Rugs.

/snark

Kyle Sampson heads to the Hill for a followup interview tomorrow, via TPM:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265540,00.html

Look at the contenders for the GOP nomination. Not much pizzazz. But Fred? Well now…

Frank Probst @ 131

Christy Hardin Smith @ 67

SOS at 56 — Liz is the heterosexual married with children daughter (whose husband is, incidentally, on the WH dole working for Homeland Security). Mary is the currently pregnant one with a long-term lesbian partner who works as her father’s personal assistant, press liaison. And, for the record, I hope her pregnancy is uneventful and the baby is healthy, and the child ought to be left out of this.

My beef with Mary is not that she’s having a child but rather that she is a gay woman who belongs to a party that is militantly anti-gay, AND she has chosen to profit from this fact ($1million book deal). That makes her a fairly public figure in my book. She lives in a state (Virginia) that just passed a Constitutional amendment that will bring enormous harm to gay families. (My parents live there, and I find that amendment to be so repellent that I don’t even want to visit them on the holidays. I’d rather have them fly out to see me than go back to my childhood home. It’s THAT bad.) Her child is due next month (May). The Virginia vote was in November. Do the math. She was pregnant when the Virginia amendment was being debated by the public. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that this was a fairly well-planned pregnancy, which means she KNEW she was pregnant at the time. And even though she’d just walked away with a seven-figure payoff for telling her story of what it was like to be the Veep’s lesbian daughter, she didn’t say a damn thing. Her voice could have turned the tide there. Instead, she sat back and watched her own family be written out of Virginia’s constitution. This isn’t about Mary’s baby. It’s about Mary herself. And she deserves all the scorn that can be heaped on her.

/rant

I agree with you completely, Frank. Bien Diche.

OntheCusp @
57

Some people say that a power lesbian having a baby with her partner emboldens other lesbians.

different daughter, he has two to distract us

It’s time for Ms Rice to make another junket to the Middle East. From AP:

”We know that there is a security problem in Baghdad,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters at the State Department. ”This is still early in the process and I don’t think anyone expected that there wouldn’t be counter-efforts by terrorists to undermine the security presence.”

S.O.S. from MA @ 137

I just heard that John McCain has a bad case of shopper’s envy against Lindsay Graham, his companion in that stroll thru the Baghdad market. John’s declared a War On Rugs.

/snark

you echo the motto of the Hardwood Flooring Association:

“Dare to Keep Kids of d’ Rugs”

I think the endgame is on.

That explains the outrage to Pelosi. She’s showing the world that the US can still be diplomatic, despite Bush.

The Bush’s endgame is sucking Iran and Syria and Israel into a final conflict.

Hence the new reports about Iran training insurgents and the Liz Cheney/Syria demonizing efforts.

With the Trumps and the Iacocca’s bailing…the mainstream/establishment/corporate world have left the reservation.

Military leaders, even retired ones are unwilling to offer themselves up as fodder.

The US military was told to go screw with the endless tours.

Sooner or later, the Bush circle will be too small to defend the Alamo.

-GSD

melfeasance @ 120

Gnome de Plume @ 6: Is there anything that Bush/Cheney has not broken?

Not only have they broken everything, they have set up timed release systems that will continue breaking everything for years to come.

we will be looking for them (we know where most of them are; we just need to wait until 2009 to defuse them).

Doonesbury has been doing a hilarious series of the neocon/Faux News reporter sent to interview folks in Vermont towns who keep voting to impeach Bush/Cheney – folks the reporter regards as traitors. Today he provides another take on why the Cheney clan is still going after the Speaker of the House. Doonesbury.

firedoglake:

when the “monitors” aka censors become as active as they were yesterday afternoon and evening in back-to-back posts by jane hamsher and phoenix woman

the monitors are not doing their job well.

there are few things more disappointing than a weblog that gives its commenters as sense they are being watched closely.

it does no good to say,

“you can’t believe some of the stuff they have to review”.

i believe it.

i also believe that that argument is akin to “we are preventing dire things from happening that could, or will, or did previously happen. trust us.”

maybe a little more training?

Gingrich has morals problems. I’d love for him to run. This prospect makes this Dem salivate.

So, this would make it all the more necessary for Pat Leahy to call in Ashcroft, Thompson, Comey, Rice, Gonzales, Tom Ridge (as former WHC) etc. to explore the whys and hows of Maher Arar being sent by Thompson to Syria, via Jordan, for torture, wouldn’t it?

After all, if rogue elements in DOJ were sending Canadians off to Syria to be tortured and rogue elements in the State Department were “talking to” the Syrians to get them to let us make special deliveries to the Palestine Branch for torture and more rogue elements in the DOJ and DHS were then filing Declarations, under oath, with the Courts of the United States of America that tremendous state secrets risks (and not aberrant and perverted criminal behaviour within the DOJ and State Dept) required a cover up and order of non-justiciability, then obviously Cheney would love to have Leahy get to the bottom of it all. Imagin, if just “talking to” the Syrians “emboldens and rewards them at the expense of America and our allies in the Middle East” imagine what contracting with them for torture and agreeing to use the DOJ to both solicit and approve the torture AND to cover it up and keep from ever being able to be pursued in the courts of this country – imagine what that does to embolden them!

And I guess this would be the same Syria about which the Bush administration earlier said:

During the past five years, there have been no acts of terrorism against US citizens in Syria. The Government of Syria has cooperated significantly with the United States and other foreign governments against al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other terrorist organizations and individuals. It also has discouraged any signs of public support for al-Qaida, including in the media and at mosques.

http://www.state.gov/documents…../20117.pdf

Amazing how much better we think of them when they are torturing Canadians for George Bush than when they are meeting with Nancy Pelosi.

Maybe if she would have taken a token Canadian yanked off a plane in NY to be tortured, Cheney could have given her more leeway?

S.O.S. from MA @ 122

Biodun @ 116

… ”You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers,” said Leahy, D-Vt. ”Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

(snip)

They’re in the toobz somewhere. Send out the search parties! Man the Subpoenas! Avast, ye lubbers! Arrrr…

lol.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0407/040907ol.htm

Subpoena Sarah Taylor (who has since resigned)

Brisingamen @ 81

The Hatch Act was passed in 1939. It’s been around MUCH longer than GWB. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if some modifications have been made to the Act since it was passed, but it was around LONG before Watergate!

Noted. Thanks Bris, I stand corrected. I either incorrectly inserted “Hatch Act” in my brain, or read a misleading article elsewhere this morning that said the Pres. records retention laws came about because of Watergate.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes! I get sloppy with the details sometimes, in a rush to get the big picture.

Tithonia @ 138

Kyle Sampson heads to the Hill for a followup interview tomorrow, via TPM:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265540,00.html

Oh, oh. He’s not as crafty as old Karl Rove.

Better be honest Kyle.

-GSD

TiredFed @
66

oldtree @ 43

the cheney spawn is their best op ed writer now, you have to use what you have. and you know they will use anything.

there is no more room for decorum. decorum is continuing this war. it is continuing the plundering of our country and many others. it is keeping our fearful congress from impeaching them.

I am sorry, after all this, how can any of us treat with republicans that have voted for these people? is it apathy? is it ignorance? I am sorry, they have had enough chances.

but you know it doesn’t change. My state rep emailed proudly yesterday that he had voted against women’s rights, against the environment and against workers rights. he was proud to do so and made up excuses that were so offensive that it is hard for me to imagine any person being able to stomach them. a proud republican tool in a red county in a blue state.

we must eliminate these people from positions of importance for ever. there is no room for the scum that want law and order for everyone except themselves.

I think we should tell them to go back where they came from – 18th Century England!

As long as it’s 18th Century. We seriously don’t want them here in the 21st!

mc @ 132

… Oooh, I didn’t realize it was “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”
Matey!

A natural mistake. 9/19 is SO confusable with 4/12 donchaknow. ( http://tinyurl.com/roatt )
Man the grappling wiretaps! Take no prisoners! Save the files! Arrrr, Matey!!

Puesto @
48

There is no such thing as an Iraqi. The tribes and religious sects have been fed this phrase by power mongers who use “national” as a control tool.

The plebes know what this means on the surface, because it has been pounded into the outer layers of their brain. But, deep down inside, they don’t feel the same feelings as, say, an American does when he sees the flag.

This is a fundamental, and very critical difference in the human psyche of their culture vs. ours. The only time we can become capable of co-existing on this planet with them, is when we understand the differences of the cultural psyche.

We are trying to cram this concept called “national boundaries” into the “patriot level” of their psyche. It will never work. The only thing which can be hoped for is some control, unfortunately, through military control. It is perpetual, and Bush/Cheney want to start a war with Iran so their successors cannot “Put it back in the bottle.”

They want to unleash a perpetual conflict to have effective control of these people who do not think like you and I when it comes to “nationalistic patriotism.”

That reminds me of something that Pat Lang said on his blog the other day. Paraphrasing as best as I can remember, there is no seperation of church and state for middle eastern people.

Their first step with the State Department was to quarantine it from any role in decision making, and even to maliciously make a stooge of the Secretary of State at critical junctures. Ultimately, though, they want to keep it so they can utterly politicize it. See this article on the new, dumbed-down testing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01415.html

Oklahoma kiddo @ 148

Gingrich has morals problems. I’d love for him to run. This prospect makes this Dem salivate.

Newt, the Dr. Smith of Washington politics. Only a little less likeable than Dr. Zachary Smith.

Bring him on. The pain, the pain.

-GSD

Fred Thompson…..the lead minority counsel during the Senate Watergate Hearings.

Why are political “zombies” from Watergate and Iran Contra are still around to do damage? The continuous sightings of politically “dead” Repubs reminds me of a bad George Romero movie (if that’s not redundant!).

Natural Fred Thompson voters: “Law & Order” fans, of course. We’d be hoping for the “dank dank” sound effect before the State of the Union address, along with a black screen and the caption “United States House of Representatives”. Then, as Fred comes into view, you’d look over his shoulder, and you would see Vice President Kiefer Sutherland. And under him, there’d be a digital clock going “dink dunk dink dunk”. Then there’d be a split screen with Kiefer on one side and an undisclosed location on the other, and in the undisclosed location would be a lone cabinet member: Secretary of State David Caruso, anxiously taking off and putting on his sunglasses.

Wouldn’t it be cool? It’d be the most suspenseful State of the Union ever!

Chetnolian @ 154

TiredFed @
66

I think we should tell them to go back where they came from – 18th Century England!

As long as it’s 18th Century. We seriously don’t want them here in the 21st!

I’m sure they’d prefer the 18th. They obviously prefer life with a mad King George.

(Going to have to change the handle…I’m shivering in Kansas now).

In regard to the following, my husband graduated from the Naval Academy in the 60’s….he left at the first opportunity and he indicated that there was a similar drop in his class to what is being described as happening to the West Point officers. He always wanted to be in the Navy. But after three years in the Vietnam arena, that was it. Another echo from those who learned nothing but creating their own reality then.

“Minnesotachuck @
8

Jason Sigger (The Armchair Generalist) points to this piece in today’s Boston Globe about the exodus of young West Point graduates from the Army. The rate is higher than it’s been since before 1977.

According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year — 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.

I’ve seen reports on military-related websites that the exodus rates for non-USMA junior officers and senior non-coms with 10-15 years of service are similarly high. When people bail when within sight of the 20 year retirement threshold it’s an ominous sign. These folks would have been the core of the future Army, folks.

That’s no lie.

54%? :::Gulp:::

Used to, the retention rates for the Academy grads, all branches, was way up there. You didn’t fight for admittance and endure four years of West Point (or USAFA or Annapolis) to bail the first chance available. The people who wanted to be there wanted to be there more than anything. They could have gone to their pick of the best universities–they chose the Academy.

I never thought I’d see the day when the retention rate for West Pointers dropped so low. Of course, this could be an Army problem. Anyone know the stats for USAFA or Annapolis? If it’s showing up for them, too, then the military is in serious trouble, especially 10 years from now, when these people would be moving into much bigger positions. I’m not saying that only Academy grads can fill those positions…but I’m worried that most of what remains of the top officer corps after this will be the wingnuttiest Bush cultists.

Not good. Not good, at all.”

Oklahoma Kiddo,

recall that bit of Dobson-Gingrich kabuki of a month ago – the one where Newt “confessed” to cheating on spouse while prosecuting Big Dog for same

further, Dobson has already commented that Thompson “doesn’t look” Christian to him

May I suggest calling, e-mailing your reps and Senator Rockerfeller in regard to the status of Phase II of the Senate Select Committe on Intelligence.

Let them know we are waiting to witness false pre-war intelligence ACCOUNTABILITY.

Another link to more info about Phase II
http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup

punaise @ 143

S.O.S. from MA @ 137

I just heard that John McCain has a bad case of shopper’s envy against Lindsay Graham, his companion in that stroll thru the Baghdad market. John’s declared a War On Rugs.
/snark

you echo the motto of the Hardwood Flooring Association:
“Dare to Keep Kids off d’ Rugs”

Sensei! I strew petals in your path as you return to the Lake!

GSD @ 153

Tithonia @ 138

Kyle Sampson heads to the Hill for a followup interview tomorrow, via TPM:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,265540,00.html

Oh, oh. He’s not as crafty as old Karl Rove.

Better be honest Kyle.

-GSD

Does he remember how to get there?

Helpless Dancer,

I like Pat Lang, but he seems to offer up a lot of the same malarky that conflates all Arabs and all Muslims that is popular with much of the military.

There are plenty of secular Arabs.

That would be like concluding something about “all Americans”….based on how Bush has run the show.

-GSD

STTP in Ohio @ 98

Folks, it’s over.

Thankfully, it’s finally over.

It ain’t over ’til the stake’s in the heart and the last clod of dirt leaves the shovel

Oklahoma kiddo @ 148

Gingrich has morals problems. I’d love for him to run. This prospect makes this Dem salivate.

I understand that, but Reagan had moral problems too. They own the media, so they made them disappear. Hell, Dubya had moral problems, too. Nary a mention of them pre-2000.

I’m not scared of Thompson, I’m scared of Gingrich.

GSD @
144

I think the endgame is on.

That explains the outrage to Pelosi. She’s showing the world that the US can still be diplomatic, despite Bush.

The Bush’s endgame is sucking Iran and Syria and Israel into a final conflict.

Hence the new reports about Iran training insurgents and the Liz Cheney/Syria demonizing efforts.

With the Trumps and the Iacocca’s bailing…the mainstream/establishment/corporate world have left the reservation.

Military leaders, even retired ones are unwilling to offer themselves up as fodder.

The US military was told to go screw with the endless tours.

Sooner or later, the Bush circle will be too small to defend the Alamo.

-GSD

No fair! You can’t have endgame. I claimed it first @98!

suicide bomb in the green zone today.

Goopers are involved in displacement behavior- as illustrated by a dog who loses a rabbit that goes into a thicket into which the dog can’t follow. The dog bites the dirt- chases his tail- rolls on his back and kicks his feet- all because he can’t do what he really WANTS to do- chase the rabbit.

Goopers know that they are nearing the end of the line. It’s mid April. The SURGE will go on until fall- at that time either they have shown that they are winning- or they will be faced with shutting this fucker down. EVERYONE knows it.

Goopers have a collection of habits- call the dems surrender monkeys, blame the press for not tellin us all the good shit, sayin that we’re turning a corner, tryin ta scare hell out of everyone about the Iraqis comin here if we don’t defeat them THERE- etc.

It’s all total bullshit- it accomplishes absolutely nothing- but Cheney and crew keep at it for a simple reason- they don’t know what the fuck else to do.

In some productions of Julius Caesar the reality of the encircling ring of 33 raised daggers is juxtaposed against the fantasy of Caesar’s commanding talk.

Rather than face reality, Caesar pulls his cloak over his head and accuses his ‘friends’ of un-doing him, and by extension his divine mission as emperor.

Hmmmmmm…Could Bush be the Great American Trailer Park Musical version?

Frank Probst @ 160

Natural Fred Thompson voters: “Law & Order” fans, of course. We’d be hoping for the “dank dank” sound effect before the State of the Union address, along with a black screen and the caption “United States House of Representatives”. Then, as Fred comes into view, you’d look over his shoulder, and you would see Vice President Kiefer Sutherland. And under him, there’d be a digital clock going “dink dunk dink dunk”. Then there’d be a split screen with Kiefer on one side and an undisclosed location on the other, and in the undisclosed location would be a lone cabinet member: Secretary of State David Caruso, anxiously taking off and putting on his sunglasses.

Wouldn’t it be cool? It’d be the most suspenseful State of the Union ever!

And, of course, the narrator growling, “previously on (pause) State, of the Union.”

Maybe they could create a CSpan4 for Dick Wolf.

Frank Probst @ 160

Natural Fred Thompson voters: “Law & Order” fans, of course. We’d be hoping for the “dank dank” sound effect before the State of the Union address, along with a black screen and the caption “United States House of Representatives”. Then, as Fred comes into view, you’d look over his shoulder, and you would see Vice President Kiefer Sutherland. And under him, there’d be a digital clock going “dink dunk dink dunk”. Then there’d be a split screen with Kiefer on one side and an undisclosed location on the other, and in the undisclosed location would be a lone cabinet member: Secretary of State David Caruso, anxiously taking off and putting on his sunglasses.

Wouldn’t it be cool? It’d be the most suspenseful State of the Union ever!

Frank Probst @ 160:

Fred Thompson’s Manhattan DA Arthur Branch is not very convincing. First off: How did he get elected with a southern accent and his politics (Arthurs Branch’s I mean)? How does he get along with lesbian ADA Southerly (Elizabeth Roehm)? (Disclosure: I don’t watch TV; I just watch “Law & Order.”)

Another Phase II link
http://intelligence.senate.gov/040212.htm.

This is the best overall compilation of articles having to do with Phase II
http://thinkprogress.org/roberts-coverup

S.O.S. in MA says “They’re in the toobz somewhere.”

I’ll never understand this hi-tech stuff. Are these “toobz” like big trucks, or not like big trucks?

(wink)

Brava Mary4 at 159.

GSD @ 167

Helpless Dancer,

I like Pat Lang, but he seems to offer up a lot of the same malarky that conflates all Arabs and all Muslims that is popular with much of the military.

There are plenty of secular Arabs.

That would be like concluding something about “all Americans”….based on how Bush has run the show.

-GSD

only trouble is, the govt. that represents “all Americans” now has offical policies that permit torture, indefinite imprisonment without the protections of habeus corpus, unilateral invasion and occupation of other countries (the Bush/Cheney Doctrine), spying on its own citizens, and the list goes on. sorry to rant.

Badwater @
75

oldtree @ 43 – I’m sure the Bush twins are working on their own op-ed’s. They have to write between parties so it takes a long time. It’s hard work.

Work is hard. Hard work is really hard. Work is so hard, hard work is too hard so just do work.

Uh-oh . . . Spew alert at the top of Christy’s new post: Secret Agent Woman

Would this be a good time to ask you all to think about Alan Johnson, the BBC Correspondent in Gaza, who disappeared exactly a month ago. He was the only Western journalist who actually lived there and was dedicated to making sure the World knew exactly what life was like there.

He disappearance is odd in that usually there is some communication from kidnappers. I am trying hard not to remind myself of the only people who would really have wanted to silence him.

new thread…

Leahy’s ‘Emails aren’t just “lost”‘ in the Senate today was the perfect response. Absolutely spot-on.

This is going to get very popcorn very quickly.

dakine01 @ 180

Badwater @
75

oldtree @ 43 – I’m sure the Bush twins are working on their own op-ed’s. They have to write between parties so it takes a long time. It’s hard work.

Work is hard. Hard work is really hard. Work is so hard, hard work is too hard so just do work.

you know, this is what I love about the lake. and SOS from Mass, too. I so need a laugh these days. maholo

Fresh thread, complete with spew warning.

hereditary hypocrisy…

Minnesotachuck @
8

Jason Sigger (The Armchair Generalist) points to this piece in today’s Boston Globe about the exodus of young West Point graduates from the Army. The rate is higher than it’s been since before 1977.

According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year — 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.

I’ve seen reports on military-related websites that the exodus rates for non-USMA junior officers and senior non-coms with 10-15 years of service are similarly high. When people bail when within sight of the 20 year retirement threshold it’s an ominous sign. These folks would have been the core of the future Army, folks.

Chuck, I was reading and commenting about the gutting of the officer’s corps over a year ago. People thought I was being alarmist.

scarecrow @ 146

Doonesbury has been doing a hilarious series of the neocon/Faux News reporter sent to interview folks in Vermont towns who keep voting to impeach Bush/Cheney – folks the reporter regards as traitors. Today he provides another take on why the Cheney clan is still going after the Speaker of the House. Doonesbury.

last week’s was good too….DJ Mark peeling back “man of principle” Romney

Frank Probst @ 136

Christy Hardin Smith @ 106

Frank at 99 — There’s no confusion. Welcome to Bob Novak Reputation Rehab attempt #327. Facts be damned, he’s got a personal reputation to salvage. *g*

I know. I haven’t had my coffee yet, so I feel compelled to point out the obvious. ;)

As I said @30, Novak, Krauthammer, Toensing, and the rest of WaPo’s stable of wingnuts should STFU unless they can furnish evidence that:
(i) Plame’s CIA affiliation was not classified, or
(ii) She did not serve outside the U.S.

There’s sworn testimony from substantial people that (i) and (ii) are true. And I’m tired of hearing these jackasses say “… but she wasn’t a real spy in the sense of the IIPA, which Victoria Toensing helped to write — so she should know.” In fact, I’d like to see Waxman call her back and ask her to show cause as to why she shouldn’t be cited for perjury.

A couple of references from Ghost Plane by Stephen Grey (2006) St. Martin’s Press about Arar in Syria. Think about the men who willingly agreed to do this to a person against whom they had no credible proof, and then think about the fact that this was solicited and authorized and enacted by the highest officials in our Dept of Justice, then covered up and protected as “legal” in court by others with the hightest authority in our DOJ, and realize that the USA situation is such a drop in the bucket when you look at what has happened to the DOJ and to law in this country.

And keep this in mind the next time someone tries to laughingly say that Gonzales makes Ashcroft look good.

Nothing makes this look good.

At this point you’ll notice the smell of uncleared toilets and the sweat of men crammed together. As you’re a new visitor, it is likely you will go to an empty cell. The last cell, number 19, has been recently used for people coming in and out, so it’s probably empty. As you’ree pushed through the door you will see that, if you are of average height and width, you can barely fit inside. The cell is three feet wide, six feet long and seven feet High.
Welcome to the Grave, as the place is known to the inmates of a global network of prisons.
…Pay close attention, because this is a key destination in the war on terror. Admittedly, it is not where President George W. Bush would take visitors on a showpiece tour, and yet, here in this dungeon, on this day, December 17, 2002, are at least seven prisoners who claim to have arrived courtesy of the United States.

In cell number 2 is Maher Arar, a Canadian wireless technician who was deported to Syria from New York in a private American jet.

… He is beaten on his back, his buttocks, and his feet with a two-inch-thick electric cable. Night and day he can hear around him the screams of other prisoners. But worst of all is the rat infested, tiny, and solitary cell. He can barely stretch out in one direction.

…Once a week he is brought out to wash himself. He is held in the same cell for ten months

Prologue, pp. 2-3

As Grey discusses in his prologue, on this same selected day, December 17, 2002,

…President Bashar and his wife were welcomed to a banquet by the Lady Moress of London. … On the menu was gravadlax ith quail egg for starters, followed by canon of lamb with minted b�arnaise sauce, passion fruit souffl� glace or tropical fruit salad, and finally a tartlet of monkfish tail …

Meanwhile in Damascus, Maher was sunk in despair. By now he had already signed a false confession that said he had trained at a camp in Afghanistan. He wondered what more he could say. “After the time went by,” he remembered, I got into a very, very desperate situation, where I wanted to be out of htat place at any cost, and that’ when I realized, to be in that place, the psychological torture in that place is even worse that the beating, the torture. I was ready to accept anything. I was ready to accept a ten-, twenty-year sentence, and say anything, just to get to another place.

The trouble for Maher was that he could not provide what the Syrians wanted most: useful information to pass back to Americans. So his incarceration continued.
Prologue, p. 6.

Check out the comments on this in the WaPo (just follow the link). There are some great ones :-)…

Peter

STTP in Ohio at 98:

Folks, it’s over.

Thankfully, it’s finally over.

Sure there are i’s to be dotted, t’s to be crossed, subpoenas to be issued, televised congressional hearings to be had… but they are done.

We will look back on the “troop surge” & “recess appointments” and see them as the last gasp of a desperate administration similar to how the villain raises up one last time before finally being done away with at the end of the movie.

The e-mail scandal (no, it’s not too early to call it that after yesterday’s developments) will prove to be their undoing.

Think about it; essentially they are saying the content of the e-mails was so damaging that shred, delete & take our chances was the best option.

Never mind that Waxman, Conyers etc. are already on their behinds like a poor boy on a pork chop.

No, this is the end game. Congratulate yourselves on a job well done!

I pray to God that you’re right. I’ve had my hopes dashed one too many times to embrace your view immediately, but I’m coming around to believing that we got ‘em. We finally fucking got ‘em.

More Phase II articles/ Call your reps, call Senator Rockerfeller ask them about the status of Phase II

http://www.thenation.com/blogs…..pid=106967

http://robertdreyfuss.com/blog…..feith.html

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002957.php

hackworth @ 20

If Al Gore had similarly installed one of his daughters in such a position while being Vice President, the MSM would have beat him over the head relentlessly for it. The shrieks of nepotism and political favoritism (from the MSM) would not have ceased until she was shamed from the position in disgrace.

It would have been a subject of daily discourse on par with Ana Nicole’s babydaddy or the diaper-wearing astronaut.

The MSM is absolutely corrupt and complicit in the dismantlement of American democracy.

good point

GSD @ 167

Helpless Dancer,

I like Pat Lang, but he seems to offer up a lot of the same malarky that conflates all Arabs and all Muslims that is popular with much of the military.

There are plenty of secular Arabs.

That would be like concluding something about “all Americans”….based on how Bush has run the show.

-GSD

I agree with you, there are a lot of secular Arabs. However, it is not the secular Arabs that are causing the problems. It is the ones who think that there is no separation. We are starting to suffer an increasing number of problems here with the “Christians” that believe the same thing.

#25 Puesto…Oil Pipelines to

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq…..50,00.html

http://www.janes.com/regional_….._1_n.shtml

http://dir.salon.com/story/new…..index.html

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/p…..mNo=332835

My hope is that all US military serving in combat today will return safe and whole.

Yet – due to their civilian leaders – US forces in Iraq and Afganistan have committed thousands – if not tens of thousands – of acts of violence against innocent civilians.

Bombing hospitals and water treatment facilities is simply a war crime against the civilian population: tens of thousands of deaths from water-borne diseases.

Our military were and are complicit in horrific human rights crimes crimes – and the senior unifromed leadership, command structure, and senior officers in the field deliberately planned and executed the violence against civilians which brought about these cimes.

When the Soviets or their client states did this, we called it human rights abuse – and human rights crimes.

Those blinded by nationalism will have their metaphorical apoplexies – and come out with all sorts of bluster which merely obsucres the fact the human rights are universal, and war crimes by someone in an American uniform are evil. And war crimes perpetrated by the Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans, and Israelis are evil.

And my whole life the US military and US “security services” have run about the globe wreaking atrocities on civilians in nations where people talked adopting rules for owning stuff – inanimate objects – and dared to propose rules for owning property which aren’t the rules the megacorps have forced upon America.

So – as USMC General Smedley Butler observed – the US military are sent out as “enforcers” for US corporate balance sheets. US troops killed civilians in Nicaragua to put the Somoza dictatorship in power – US planes mined that nation’s harbors when they threw off our dictator. In Angola, US “security services” fed weapons in to a civil war than killed thousands – US megacorps didn’t like the Angolan goverments property laws. In the Phillipines, US forces brutally slaughtered the indigenous people, who foolishly thought Americans had arrived to liberate them from the Spanish empire.

Nope – the US military arrived in the Phillipiines as our first formal act of empire. In the age of steam ships, thatpower needed fueling stations, and the steam ships carried the trade. So US economic forces needed those foreign fuelling stations – and our war with Spain obtained them.

The US military was well suited to the task of near genocidial violence against indigenous peoples – the US military pursued and executed genocidal violence against the indigenous peoples of North America.

And the US military has been mst effective in destroying the indigenous peoples of Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Iraq. Nice to see they’re keeping their core competencies intact.

So while I respect the peole in uniform, and believe most of them sincerely think they are protecting out nation, the post-WWII actions of the US military have brought death to millions, (and misery to hundereds of millions) of people who never threatened us.

Until our troops (or the weapons our troops gave to local surrogates) came to kill them and their families.

These outcomes were neccessary for US megacorps to remove resources from other nations without paying the locals full price.

I don’t understand why Americans – or anyone else – should die so Chiquita/United Brands can keep the quarterly earnings high.

The rest of the world doesn’t seem to understand, either – and since the Berlin Wall fell, the rest of the world has grown to fear us.

So I wish the Iraq war and the destruction and death it has brought to Iraqis never happened. And I wish the US troops injured and killed in Iraq had never been sent there, and never been harmed.

But I can’t shed a tear about the professional officer corps leaving the US military in droves. Save for direct retaliation against Al-Queda, inmy lifetime the US military has been an instrument of state violence used on behalf of private economic power.

50,000 Americans died in Vietnam because – why – other people might have different laws about how people own stuff?

Guess what Pentagon – how other people in other lands write property laws is not a threat to our domestic security. Other nation’s property laws are only a threat to Amercians so insanely wealthy that they have fortunes they have chosen invest abroad.

Since 1948, the Pentagon has been unable to recognize the difference between our nation’s physical security and the very narrow interests of the megacorps’ owners.

So our schools, roads, rails, hospitals, elders, communities have been systematically exploited and defunded…in order for Standard Brands to take whatever they want from Central America. And so Big Energy can take the Iraqi’s national treasure – their oil.

Bush’s oedipal death-grip on his father’s world has destroyed the Atlantic alliance and may well hobble the US military’s capacity to send ground troops into other nations.

For the rest of the planet, freedom from the US military’s violence would be a welcome change.

I hope whatever is rebuilt from the post-Iraq US military will have the capacity to defend our nation’s security, yet lack the the capacity to invade other nations.

America and the US Military invaded Iraq in violation of International law – and America and the US Military are responsible for the war crimes and human rights crimes our soldiers have been ordered to commit there.

For the sake of the rest of the planet – as well as our own sakes – I hope this illegal war so breaks America’s civilian and military capacity to wage aggressive war that America never regains the capacity for Imperial war.

May what began with the slaughter of Native Americans and metastasized after our genocidal campaigns in the Phillipines finally end amidst the futility and gore in Iraq.

US military (and spooks) are no more or less worthy of life than are the civilians they have deliberately murdered in the megacorps’ service.

The very heroic role of the US Military in defeating the Japanese and German Empires, in defeating the cancer of the Confederacy, and in defeating the British does not insulate, exculpate, or immunize them from responsibility for their war crimes and human rights crimes in other theatres.

With the US military’s civilian leadership in thrall to the megacorps, collapse of America’s capacity to wage aggressive war is the only apparent route for ridding the planet of America’s invasions and wars.

The world collapsed Britain’s capacity for wars of aggression with the post-Suez Sterling crisis.

Since 2002, the Euro has apppreciated by 50% against the dollar. Reagan and the Rethugs have only maintained their voodoo economics trick because the world chose to denominate oil purchases in dollars.

With the Iraq invasion/occupation, the rest of the planet is no longer willing to finance our wars. Energy suppliers are now selling energy in Euros. China is “diversifying” foreign currency reserves (selling dollars).

And America’s military/megacorp sector is about to experience what the British learned after Suez.

Too bad thousands of US troops died, tens of thousands maimed, hundreds of thousands or Iraqis died, and millions of Iraqis were made refugees before the palnet found a way to cripple America’s capacity for wars of aggression.

And too bad we’ve pissed our nation’s wealth down the rathole of the military-industrial complex for almost sixty years.

Today our national treasure is squandered, our citizens are “passed” through crumbling educational systems, and our health care resources wither away…

all so a bunch of people in suits could fight proxy wars with a bunch of other people in suits (somewhere else) over what property laws were written in yet other nations.

Sixty years of Imperial War have nearly broken our nation. Breaking America’s capacity for Imperial War may yet allow us to restore our ravaged people, communities and infrastructure.

Or – our ambitious military leaders and the officer corps can further the destruction of our national wealth and resources by an illegal war with Iran.

Perhaps they will remember they swore an Oath to defend the Constitution – not Rove and the GOP – before it is too late for them to save what remains of our military.

Given the US military’s complicity in and advocacy for illegal wars of aggression over the last fifty years, I’m not optimistic.

LJ/Aquaria @ 69

Minnesotachuck @
8

Jason Sigger (The Armchair Generalist) points to this piece in today’s Boston Globe about the exodus of young West Point graduates from the Army. The rate is higher than it’s been since before 1977.

According to statistics compiled by West Point, of the 903 Army officers commissioned upon graduation in 2001, nearly 46 percent left the service last year — 35 percent at the conclusion of their five years of required service, and another 11 percent over the next six months. And more than 54 percent of the 935 graduates in the class of 2000 had left active duty by this January, the statistics show.

I’ve seen reports on military-related websites that the exodus rates for non-USMA junior officers and senior non-coms with 10-15 years of service are similarly high. When people bail when within sight of the 20 year retirement threshold it’s an ominous sign. These folks would have been the core of the future Army, folks.

That’s no lie.

54%? :::Gulp:::

Used to, the retention rates for the Academy grads, all branches, was way up there. You didn’t fight for admittance and endure four years of West Point (or USAFA or Annapolis) to bail the first chance available. The people who wanted to be there wanted to be there more than anything. They could have gone to their pick of the best universities–they chose the Academy.

I never thought I’d see the day when the retention rate for West Pointers dropped so low. Of course, this could be an Army problem. Anyone know the stats for USAFA or Annapolis? If it’s showing up for them, too, then the military is in serious trouble, especially 10 years from now, when these people would be moving into much bigger positions. I’m not saying that only Academy grads can fill those positions…but I’m worried that most of what remains of the top officer corps after this will be the wingnuttiest Bush cultists.

Not good. Not good, at all.

spinoza @ 91

Anybody know why Ted Stevens is stuttering self-promoting garbage on the senate floor right now?

Because his vocal cords are in use?

Does anyone really care what Liz Cheney and her book burning mother think? These soon to be has beens don’t realize that only their 30% is listening.

Bush said it again today after they blew up his parliament: those bombers want to blow us up here in America too. Each new US fuckup proves Bush has to be retained to fuck up more.

I have listened to so much comment on the campaign to smear Pelosi, and yet no one talks about the obvious reason behind the attacks.

If Bush and Cheney are impeached, who will become the President?

It is absolutely crucial for Bush and Cheney, who are now cowering in a corner somewhere in fear of the truth coming out, to make the alternative to their rule as unappealing as possible.

Thus, as time continues, we can confidently expect the attacks on Pelosi to become ever more vicious and vituperative.

great point, Carl – without your comment, I would have missed it. Thank you.

Christy, thanks this is one of the best posts I’ve read in a while on FDL or elsewhere and that says a lot. You are right about the politics of distraction. Let’s keep our focus on where the blame really lies: Cheney, Bush and their minions. I particularly loved the closing quote from Louise. Excellent.

“Less deflection, more change.”
Yes, impeachment is going to cause change aplenty! What fun!

Liz Cheney had it right to a point, except for one word:
“It is time to face facts. Talking to the Bushies emboldens and rewards them at the expense of America and our allies in the Middle East. It hasn’t and won’t change their behavior. They are an outlaw regime and should be isolated.”

That photo at the beginning is Great! Both the pattern and the colors work well together.

I just used it to replace a generic Microsoft Wallpaper. It stretches quite well.